Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia

Objectives:To study the episodes of Staph.aureus bacteremia diagnosed at Ki ng Abdulaziz University Hospital, to determine the source of infection, ris k factors, the outcome of treatment and to compare our results with those r eported in the literature, Methods: A retrospective study in which the episodes of Staph.aureus bacter emia diagnosed at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Kingdom of Sa udi Arabia in the period from June 1996 to December 1998 were analyzed. Results: A total of 103 episodes of Staph.aureus bacteremia were diagnosed in 95 patients with a mean age of 33.61 years (range 2 months to 90 years) and male:female ratio of 1.9:1. More than 50% of patients were Saudi nation als. Hospital-acquired infection was detected in 74% of the episodes versus 25% community-acquired, Methicillin resistant Staph.aureus was found in 29 % of the episodes. Intravenous catheters and wounds were the main sources o f bacteremic episodes (29% and 21%). The-overall mortality was 32% with sig nificant association with old age, diabetes mellitus and hemodialysis for r enal failure. Risk factors such as surgical wounds, diabetes mellitus and m alignancy, were more frequently associated with hospital-acquired than comm unity-acquired bacteremia, Infective endocarditis was higher in patients wi th community-acquired bacteremia who had unknown source of infection, Conclusions: As discussed in the text, our results are comparable with thos e reported in the literature. Insertion of intravenous catheters under asep tic precaution, better care and judicious limitation of patients length of exposure to central line, in addition to proper wound dressings could reduc e the frequency of blood stream infections.